1. Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure, for example, relates to wireless communications systems, and more particularly to cooperative use of wireless wide area network (WWAN) and wireless local area network (WLAN) components.
2. Description of Related Art
Wireless communications systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, and so on. These systems may be multiple-access systems capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., time, frequency, and power). Examples of such multiple-access systems include code-division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time-division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency-division multiple access (FDMA) systems, and orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) systems.
By way of example, a wireless multiple-access communication system may include a number of base stations or access points, each simultaneously supporting communication for multiple communication devices, otherwise known as user equipments (UEs). A base station or access point may communicate with UEs on downlink channels (e.g., for transmissions from a base station to a UE) and uplink channels (e.g., for transmissions from a UE to a base station). Communication between a UE and a base station may use a wireless wide area network (WWAN), while communication between a UE and an access point may use a wireless local area network (WLAN). Wi-Fi is an example of a common WLAN technology supported by a UE. UEs typically include different WWAN and WLAN receive (Rx) and transmit (Tx) chains. For example, a UE may have one or more Rx and Tx chains used for WWAN communications, and may also have one or more separate Rx and Tx chains used for WLAN communications.
Sometimes the WWAN Rx/Tx chains are used while the WLAN Rx/Tx chains are not being used or have capacity for additional use. For example, a UE may be in a connected state using a WWAN (e.g., an LTE network), thus using one or more WWAN Rx/Tx chains. Typically, this means that the one or more WWAN Rx/Tx chains are tuned to certain frequencies or frequency bands. However, while the UE uses the WWAN, the UE may also have need to search for cells or make measurements on frequencies that are different from those that the WWAN Rx/Tx chains are tuned, for example as in the case of inter-Radio Access Technology (inter-RAT) search.